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Sep 2011

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1,010

Passive playcalling? Against Titans? Why?

This says it all...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Don’t blame Thursday.

However anyone chooses to analyze the Steelers’ atrocious 26-23 loss to a terrible Tennessee team that dropped their record to 2-3 and might have tipped their playoff hopes, don’t go the trite route of blaming the short week of preparation. It’s preposterous to suggest. The Titans had the same break.
Don’t blame all the injuries, either. The Titans were missing starting quarterback Jake Locker.
Don’t blame playing on the road. If the Titans had a home-field edge, it would have been news to the 30,000-plus at LP Field decked out in black and gold.
And you know what?
Don’t even blame the secondary.
No, really.
Yeah, I was here. I saw Ike Taylor getting torched so often it’s as if the Titans’ receivers were trading Demaryius Thomas masks amongst each other. I saw Keenan Lewis allow a sure interception — if there is any such thing with the Steelers’ defensive backs — to ricochet so far out of his hands it might have landed in Memphis. I saw Will Allen start for the first time in three years, sadly forced into action by the poor play of Ryan Mundy, who still found a way to do damage by missing his man on a Tennessee blocked punt.
Yeah, I saw it all. No need to pull punches. Exempting Ryan Clark, who was terrific again, this is the softest secondary the Steelers have seen since the Harvey Clayton days.
And that’s with all due apologies to Mr. Clayton, who managed three more interceptions in 1986 than Taylor and Lewis have totaled this season.
This was Mike Tomlin’s assessment afterward: “Obviously, we need to look at everything, but I doubt that the process itself is an issue.”
Really?
The bulk of the blame for this fiasco, if you ask me, goes to the playcalling.

Both sides of the ball.
Let’s start with this simple premise: When facing a 1-4 team that’s been outscored, 181-88 … um, let me think how to say this … oh, yeah … GO FOR THE JUGULAR.
Storm them.
Stamp them out early.
Sap them of their will.
Shouldn’t have been all that hard in facing an opponent whose not-really-a-star running back, Chris Johnson, earlier in the week was quoted as saying, “We’re not exactly headed in the right direction.”
Not until the Steelers played tour guide.
Dick LeBeau’s defense came out in the same conservative mode we’ve maddeningly seen most of this season. The corners play miles off the line of scrimmage, and the linebackers occasionally join them. It looks at times like a video being rewound.
The result was immediate: Whatever’s left of Matt Hasselbeck coolly moved Tennessee down the field for an opening field goal.
The Steelers responded with a tying field goal and, later, in the first quarter, decided to GO FOR THE JUGULAR with a Ben Roethlisberger heave to Mike Wallace.
The result: An 82-yard touchdown, a 10-3 lead, and Roethlisberger was 5 of 8 for 130 yards.
Why mess with that, right?
Well, for reasons only Tomlin and Todd Haley could know, this team seems hellbent on showing it can run between the tackles and throw screen passes, no matter the evidence to the contrary, no matter that Rashard Mendenhall and Isaac Redman were felled by injury, no matter that they were playing the Titans and really might have done well to GO FOR THE JUGULAR at least another time or two.
They didn’t. They ran up 22 rushes for 56 yards, yet another meager average of 2.5 per carry. That was lowlighted by a head-scratcher of a call on second-and-6 on the Steelers’ last drive, on which Baron Batch was held to a yard. One incomplete pass later, Shaun Suisham missed a 54-yard field goal try.
That’s no jab at Batch or Chris Rainey, undersized backs who did the best they could. And it’s certainly no jab at the line, which lost Maurkice Pouncey for the game and Marcus Gilbert and Ramon Foster for spells.
No, it’s an indictment of playcalling that’s starting to look more like it’s predicated on ego than, you know, winning the game.
When did how the Steelers win ever matter?
Defensively, Dick LeBeau’s scheme was even more conservative and even less effective.
Again, I’m not absolving the players. All of the numbers point to a collection of corners utterly incapable of pressing.
But if there ever was a time to push an opponent around a little bit, this was it. In addition to using their backup QB, the Titans have an utterly star-free receiving corps. And yet, Hasselbeck stayed mostly comfortable thanks to few bring-the-house blitzes, and the receivers had ample room because of what the coaches call the “tackle-the-catch” approach.
Give even a bad NFL team an inch for free, and they’d be crazy not to take a yard.
As with Haley and the offense, why wouldn’t LeBeau play to whatever strengths he has among his personnel?
Was that really James Harrison dropping back into coverage on tight end Jared Cook’s 25-yard reception that set up the winning field goal?
Yeah, it was.
Don’t blame Harrison for that.

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May 2008

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The following quotes from the article say it all which is exactly what I have been saying for two years while so many make excuses and live with hope of past glories. Is there anyone who will still try to deny where the problem on defense starts. "A video being rewound" says it all. LeBeau is incapable of meaningful change. I said at the end of last season that we needed two new Coordinators...this season is proving we came up with one too few new guys.

Dick LeBeau’s defense came out in the same conservative mode we’ve maddeningly seen most of this season. The corners play miles off the line of scrimmage, and the linebackers occasionally join them. It looks at times like a video being rewound.

Defensively, Dick LeBeau’s scheme was even more conservative and even less effective.
Again, I’m not absolving the players. All of the numbers point to a collection of corners utterly incapable of pressing.
But if there ever was a time to push an opponent around a little bit, this was it. In addition to using their backup QB, the Titans have an utterly star-free receiving corps. And yet, Hasselbeck stayed mostly comfortable thanks to few bring-the-house blitzes, and the receivers had ample room because of what the coaches call the “tackle-the-catch” approach.

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May 2008

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7,211

Was the defense that conservative? I saw DBs blitzing, including on play on which both Lewis and Allen rushed. A fake blitz led to an interception that even Timmons couldn't drop. Lewis and Allen had pretty solid, tight coverage for most of the night.

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Sometimes is seems like more because all of the defenders moving up front and taking a false first step, but the end result is that they all end up in some sort of zone afterwards.

A blitz is where you outnumber and overwhelm the number of available blocker along the LOS at a single or multiple points. We did not do that last night and when Hampton plays you are essentially rushing 2 defensive linemen because Hampton can't get to the QB---advantage OL and that is what we saw last night.

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May 2008

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Originally Posted by Sword

This says it all...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Don’t blame Thursday.

Dick LeBeau’s defense came out in the same conservative mode we’ve maddeningly seen most of this season. The corners play miles off the line of scrimmage, and the linebackers occasionally join them. It looks at times like a video being rewound.

The big play before the final field goal was the passive defense described in the article. The TT's had the right play called for the defense. Did not look like an audible at the LOS by Hasselbeck. Press man coverage on the outside, two receivers split right, one receiver split left. Timmons covering the short zone out on their left (to help Ike?). Steelers rushed five. The short middle was vacated by the blitz of Foote and Cortez Allen coming off the inside receiver on the right (receiver picked up by a safety). The blitz was about one second late from Worilds or Cortez hitting Hasselbeck. Harrison covering Jared Cook with no support in the middle. Timmons sees Cook break to the inside, but he is too far removed from the middle to have any impact. The safeties are deep when the ball was thrown. Looked like Hassebeck read the defense and was going to Cook all the way. It was an easy completion with plenty of room for YAC.